


Fractured Remnants

by paperxcrowns



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: ALL ABOARD THE ANGST TRAIN, Angst, Bad Parents Jack and Janet Drake, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canonical Character Death, Fever, Hallucinations, Hopeful Ending, Mental Health Issues, Psychosis, References to Depression, Tim Drake Needs a Hug, but at the end sorry, hugs!, implied TimKon - Freeform, psychotic breakdown, that tag ain't going nowhere, they fucking suck okay?, tim does not have a fun time in this rip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:35:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29644482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperxcrowns/pseuds/paperxcrowns
Summary: It was really only a matter of time before Tim had a breakdown.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 95





	Fractured Remnants

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: i did a lot of research on psychosis, but i am not an expert and have no personal experience with it, so i apologize in advance for anything i got wrong
> 
> TW: as listed in the tags, this involves psychosis and a psychotic breakdown so please don't read if that is in any way triggering

Tim doesn’t see him often.

He was not quite sure if he preferred it when he didn’t see him or when he did. 

On one hand, he got to see Kon. He’d get to see his best friend again, standing in the room looking so painfully familiar. With his black curls and shaved sides, leather jacket over his Superboy suit, and the dozens of piercings in his ears. 

He looked perfect. His body wasn’t horribly mangled, marred with ugly purple bruises or the deep gashes and scrapes inflicted by Superboy Prime. His body wasn’t the broken mess it had been when Superman had brought him back. 

And that made Tim break down on occasion. 

Having Kon, a figment of Tim’s imagination, a part of Tim that was only shaped to look and sound and move like Kon, that would glare at him and hear him tell him he was being an idiot. It wasn’t Kon, but it was at the same time.

He was dead. He was gone. And no amount of attempted cloning would bring him back. Tim _knew_ that.

But here he was again, standing in Tim’s hotel room in Barcelona standing in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest and looking unimpressed.

“You look like a mess,” he said, his lips not moving. 

Tim smiled. “Haven’t slept in three days. Too many--” he waved a hand in the air, his whole body jittery, and he just _knew_ he would start crying if he didn’t stop his brain from processing-- literally anything that had happened to him recently. 

“Three days or four days?” Kon asked. 

Tim sat at the desk, placing his cup of coffee next to him. “I don’t know.”

“You should sleep,” Kon’s voice said. “Eat something. Drink water.”

Tim clenched his jaw. He’d been seeing Kon for the past three months and he still couldn’t tell if his voice was just in his head or if he was actually hearing it. 

“Hallucinations aren’t a good thing,” Kon said.

The hallucination may look like Kon, and talk like him and sound like him, but there was a harshness to the words that didn’t belong to Kon. So it was just him.

“Everyone’s a critic,” he mumbled, powering up the laptop. 

Yes, he was well aware that hallucinations were bad. That he definitely should see a doctor or something. But something always came up. And he never found the right time. There was always something that got in the way.

Another clue about where Bruce might be, how Tim might save him, who had even the smallest bit of information. An explosion, a surprise attack from the League of Assassins, any sign that Tim would have to cut his stay in the city he was in short.

There was never enough _time._ For a doctor, for his work, for Bruce, for _anything._

And Tim made sure there was never enough time to properly grieve. 

He always got back up, no matter how many times he was struck down. As Timmy Drake when his parents dismissed him, or got mad at him, as Robin when he took hit after hit, as Tim Drake-Wayne as he dealt with his dysfunctional family.

But this was one hit too many. He could lose only so many people before it all went to hell

He felt a prickling on the back of his neck and his lip twitched. He’d been getting that feeling too many times, now. And there was a fifty-fifty chance it was Kon’s hallucination staring at him and making him feel like he was being watched or actual League Assassins observing him from the roof of the apartment building next to the hotel.

It didn’t matter either way, he was booking a ticket for Pristina tonight and leaving in the morning.

“Are you sure you’re looking for Bruce and not running away from your responsibilities?” Kon asked.

Tim ignored him. 

His phone buzzed on the table next to his laptop. He flipped it over to see a text from Dick. there were a lot of question marks and a part of it was written in all caps. Tim swiped left without even reading the message. 

He checked his other notifications while his computer processed the purchases. He’d learned early on in his search for Bruce that he should avoid planes if he could. Sure now he had had to purchase three train tickets and a bus ticket to get to Kosovo, and he would take well over thirty hours to get there where it would only take seven or so by plane, but if he was followed on a plane by the League, there was virtually no escape. At least, no easy escape. 

He’d narrowly survived the _last time_ he’d been accosted by League assassins in a plane, and he wasn’t keen on doing that again.

There was a text from Lucius about Wayne Enterprises that he replied to, swiftly ignoring his multiple texts asking if he was okay, if he needed help, if he was safe. 

No. Yes. No.

Lucius didn’t need to be bothered with Tim’s issues, and certainly not with the League. He wasn’t putting more people that he cared about in danger.

“You can’t run forever,” Kon said. 

Tim stood up and shut the curtains, plunging his room in the dark in the sudden absence of the afternoon light. He turned on the lights in his room and locked himself in the closet with his computer.

If there were League assassins watching him, he was going to make their lives as difficult as he physically could.

“I’m not running,” he muttered to the dark around him, focusing back on his computer. 

He wasn’t running. He was looking for Bruce. He couldn’t save his parents, or Dana, or Bart, or Kon, but he damn well could save Bruce.

He wasn’t gone. Tim _needed_ him to not be gone.

It was the last thread holding him together.

* * *

“Go away,” Tim mumbled. 

“You have a fever,” Kon remarked drily. “I’m the only one here.”

Tim groaned, a sob building in his chest. Everything hurt. Everything was too bright. Too damn bright. 

“Leave me alone,” he spat out bitterly.

He was _fine._ He could deal with this alone _just fine._ He didn’t need _anyone_ to help him.

“You are working yourself to death,” Kon said instead, still standing in Tim’s line of sight no matter where he turned and flipped on the bed. “How do you think your family’s gonna react when they report finding your dead body in a dingy hotel room?”

His first thought was that he didn’t have a family; after all, Janet had died, and so had Jack, and so had Dana. 

And then he remembered Bruce. 

“We’re not family,” he mumbled into his sweat-soaked pillow.

Kon scoffed. “You were adopted. They’re yours.”

He thought of Damian, snapping at him that he wasn’t wanted. He thought of Dick, who’d just sat there and had let Damian say those words and hadn’t stopped him when Tim had stormed out. He thought of Jason still calling him Replacement, who still mocked and taunted him every chance he got.

“They were never mine,” he said, his chest painfully tight as a few tears slipped free.

Kon laughed. “Wow, you are a real idiot, huh? So much for the greatest detective of your time.”

Tim didn’t have the energy to ask what he meant. It didn’t matter, Kon was a hallucination, so was the voice, so technically he already knew the answer.

“What--” he started, belatedly remembering his hallucination was still here.

He looked around blearily but he was alone. Oh. 

“You wanted to be alone, remember?” Kon’s disembodied voice asked. “You even _asked.”_

That was right. Because he wanted to be alone. He was going to power through his raging fever _alone,_ because he’d already pushed _everyone_ away. What was one more person?

Well, himself, really.

It didn’t matter.

A shiver wracked his frame and only made the violent throbbing in his head worse. He bit back a groan of pain.

How many fevers had he suffered through on his own when his parents hadn’t come home for winter break and Mrs. Mac was off on vacation? What was just one more?

He pulled the covers up to his chin as a chesty cough overtook him. He coughed and coughed, phlegm coming up. By the time the coughing receded, he was even more exhausted than before, his chest hurting with every breath.

He fumbled for the Advil he’d set on his bedside table and shoved two in his mouth before draining his cup of water hoping that at the very least he could quell the violent headache pounding a hammering rhythm behind his skull.

He could take care of himself. He was fine. He was _going to be_ fine. 

He stared up at the ceiling, wishing he could believe that as he repeated the mantra over and over again.

* * *

“You know, healthy people don’t see dead people,” a voice said.

Tim scoffed through the gag stuffed in his mouth, his hands working furiously at the ropes, trying to dislodge them and slip his hands out. He could feel the coarse fibers chafing painfully against his wrists.

Fucking League of Assassins. Fucking Ra’s. Fucking everything that was going wrong in life at just this moment.

Kon was sitting just a few feet away from Tim, legs crossed. Another thing that Tim knew Kon never did. Kon always had his knees pulled up to his chest, arms crossed over his knees, or his legs spread out and taking up as much room as possible. 

“You could give up,” Kon said, as Tim still worked furiously at the rope. The knots were well-tied, but it was rope and Tim could get out of any kind of knot. Zip-ties and handcuffs were trickier, but rope was a cinch. “You put yourself in this predicament, I don’t see why you’re acting like this. You did this to yourself. You could’ve asked for help at any given time.”

the voice echoed slightly. He wasn’t sure if it was anyone’s voice. It didn’t sound like Kon’s anymore. Maybe it was his own voice. 

There was a shadow in the corner of the damp basement that shifted and Tim’s heart stopped when he saw Bart. 

Great. His own fucking mind was going to taunt him with the death of the people he loved.

He used to ask himself if his own mind hated him. Now it wasn’t a question he needed to ask. 

He didn’t want to let his eyes linger on Bart despite the deep yearning to look at his best friend just one last time.

No. Bart and Kon were dead. He couldn’t think about them right now. 

The ropes finally loosened enough for Tim to slide his thumb out of the bindings and quickly undid the knot. 

He pulled the gag down before untying his legs. 

Good.

He couldn’t stand the dark basement any longer. 

It invited too many shadows.

* * *

Tim really did push away everyone he loved. Bart was alive. Kon was alive. 

So why was he still looking for Bruce? Why was he ruining his health and his mind for the little validation he’d get of bringing him back? Was he _still_ that desperate for attention?

He’d made progress with that. With always wanting to please people to get their attention. Dick had told him it was something he’d integrated as a kid with his own parents, but Tim thought he’d gotten over that.

Then again, he’d also thought he’d moved past the nightmares of seeing Kon die over and over again, Tim helpless to save him each time. 

Tim almost burst into tears right then and there when his eyes caught sight of Kon standing in the bathroom. 

“You’re not dead anymore. Why are you still here?” he asked harshly, not in the mood at all to deal with this.

His face was still blotchy and tacky from waking up in tears and having to calm himself from a panic attack. He hadn’t had a panic attack since tenth grade, and he had _not_ missed them.

Kon cocked his head to the side. “Because you’re still denying it.”

Tim kept his eyes screwed shut. It was four in the morning, and his mind was still too scrambled for him to be able to deal with this right now.

“Will you ever leave me alone?” he asked quietly, hands gripping the edge of the sink. “Will you ever _go away?”_

“I think the question here is, “will you ever get help?”” Kon shot back.

Tim met his hallucination’s blank eyes in the mirror. They’d creeped him out at first. Now he was used to it.

He rested his elbows on the bathroom counter and dropped his head in his hands. 

“Please leave,” he mumbled, his voice cracking halfway through.

He’d made up his mind. No Kon was much better than hallucinating him.

“Hm. Figures.”

Seeing ghosts wasn’t much fun in practice. Tim rubbed a hand over his exhausted face, glad that the voice was gone. He ignored Kon and shuffled to the desk. Might as well get some work done until the coffee shops opened and he could get something with too much sugar for breakfast to give himself an energy boost.

He still had too much to do.

* * *

“So?” Dick prompted, shooting to his feet the second Tim stepped out of the psychiatrist’s office. “How did it go?”

Tim shrugged. He was tired. The talk had been draining and-- and for once he didn’t want to be alone. He didn’t want to deal with what the doctor had told him alone. Depression, he’d guessed. Psychosis, psychotic depression, he hadn’t. For the world’s greatest detective, he really sucked at detecting. 

He just didn’t know how to form the words. How to tell Dick _just_ how bad these last few months had been for him. 

Dick, the only person Tim knew who could just _tell_ when someone needed a hug, wrapped his arms around Tim.

Tim buried his face in Dick’s chest, feeling a lump form in his throat and hot tears pooling in his eyes. 

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Dick said, running his fingers through Tim’s hair. “Though you will probably have to tell me what meds we need to pick up, though.”

“I’m seventeen,” Tim mumbled.

Dick rested his head on top of Tim’s. “You’re still a minor, you dumbass.”

Tim slowly wrapped his arms around Dick, his fists twisting into the thin cotton of his shirt. They probably made quite a sight, the two of them holding each other as if they hadn’t seen each other in years. 

It might as well have been years, to both of them. They would have to get to know each other all over again.

Somehow, Tim didn’t mind. 

Tim pulled one hand out of the hug to swipe at his runny nose.

“Wanna stop by that new coffee shop that opened?” Dick asked. “I went there with Damian, their caramel iced coffee is _the best_ thing.”

Tim smiled. “I’d like that,” he said.

Dick pulled away from the hug but kept one arm wrapped securely around Tim’s shoulders and led the way to the reception desk where he’d been instructed to pick up his list of new prescription drugs. 

“Good,” Dick said. “I hope you’re hungry, because I’m going to be buying you so much chocolate. It helps with sadness.”

Tim snorted. “There had to be a better way to say that.”

Dick grinned. “Positively.” 

Tim rested his head on Dick’s shoulder, soaking in the most prolonged physical contact he’s had with another human being in months. It felt unbelievably nice.

“I won’t complain because chocolate is good,” Tim said. “And I need something uber sweet after this.”

Dick hummed as they entered the reception area again. “As long as Bruce never hears about it, no worries.”

Tim smiled to himself. Dick would have his skin for ever saying that the means justified the end, and that every choice he’d made had been worth it in the end, but he did have to admit to himself that it was nice. 

Nice enough that Tim was willing to put up with Dick trying to get him to join in on activities with him and Damian. He was going to let it slide until Damian made another attempt at his life.

He waited until they were in the car to speak up.

“I see things,” he said.

Dick glanced at him, hand on the steering wheel as he pulled out of the parking spot. “As in--”

“Hallucinations,” Tim said. “I’ve been… seeing them for a while.” Three months, to be exact. “The doctor said it was a symptom of psychosis.”

His eyes immediately caught Dick’s hands tightening on the steering wheel and he balked for a second.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m--”

“I’m sorry, Tim,” Dick said.

Dick was taking over Tim’s apology. Fuck that.

“For what? Not chasing after me because Damian needed you more? I was being an idiot. You shouldn’t--”

“Stop,” Dick said. Tim’s mouth snapped shut. “You need to stop that. We both made less than desirable decisions, okay? But there are things I should have done that I didn’t. I should have gone after you, Tim. and I’m so sorry that I didn’t. I thought--” his knuckles were white on the steering wheel. Tim almost didn’t dare breathe. “I thought you needed space. But that wasn’t what you needed, and I of all people should have known better. And done better.”

Tim didn’t say anything. He didn’t know if there was anything _to_ say. He couldn’t find the right way to articulate all he wanted to say. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, the words feeling meaningless, not packing enough of what Tim wanted to say. “I don’t hate you,” he said, trying for an olive branch instead.

Dick took it with a smile. “I’m glad to hear that.”

Tim smiled, his body relaxing a little. “I still want coffee and chocolate, though. You’re not getting out of that.”

Dick laughed away the remaining tension in the car. “You’ll love it.”

Tim scoffed. “It’s coffee. Of course I will.”

**Author's Note:**

> eeeeuugh the endinnngg ):<
> 
> [you can say hi on tumblr](https://blas-ph-emy.tumblr.com/)


End file.
